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CHAPTER XIV
MARISE PUTS ON BLACK

A girl in love with one man, flinging herself at the head of another out of pique or something worse, should have been utterly careless how she appeared to the eyes of the latter. But for some reason – she hardly knew what – Marise had been anxious to look her most desirable. She was dressed in black velvet with shimmering fringes, and a drooping black velvet hat which made her fairness dazzling, her yellowish-brown hair bright gold.

With a faint smile, and in silence, she held out her hand. Garth took it, and this time didn't crush it unduly.

Zélie, who had risen as Garth rose, began pinning on her toque, but Marise turned to her. "Don't go, Miss Marks," she said. "I've told you the secret, and maybe we shall need your help about something. I don't want my mother here till everything's arranged. It doesn't matter about you."

Zélie slowly took out a hatpin. Oh no, it didn't matter about her! She laid the toque down again, but drew a chair to the typewriter table, her back turned to the man and the girl. She could, if she glanced up from her papers, however, see them both in a mirror. She tried not to glance up, but she succeeded about half as often as she failed. The look on Garth's face hurt a great deal worse than the hatpin had done when just now she had jammed the point of it into her head. Oh, it was ridiculous – or heartbreaking – the way some men loved the wrong girls!

"I've been thinking in the night," said Marise in a brisk, cheerful tone, "what fun for us – since we are to be married – to get married at once and give everyone we know the surprise of their young lives!.. What do you say?"

Garth had not expected this at all. In fact, when he'd been sent for at a very early hour, he expected to hear that Marise had "changed her mind." It was easy for her to ask "what he said," knowing that he could say only commonplaces before Zélie Marks; and he believed that Zélie had been invited to remain in the room for precisely this reason.

"I say, 'Great!'" He rose to the occasion, with the memory of Zélie's words and his own drumming through his head. "They despise you. Cad: bounder: lout!" "That's nice of you! – very!" cooed Marise, noticing how his jaw squared, and feeling the tide of her curiosity rise. (Was it love? Or was it the million?) "Well then, we'll just do the deed! How long does it take to get licenses and things?"

Garth kept himself firmly in hand. "Only as long as it takes to buy the license and notify a parson."

"That's what I hoped," said Marise. "I felt sure it was different here from England."

"Shall we – that is, would you care" – (Garth's mouth was dry) – "would you care to be married to-day?"

"Yes," the girl flashed back, "I would care to, if that suits you. Because, you see, I want it to be done and over before —anybody knows. Except my mother, of course. She won't like the idea one bit. But I'll make her come round."

"I see," said Garth. And he did see. He saw very clearly. But he could not understand, all in a moment like this, why she wanted to marry him without letting Severance know beforehand. It didn't seem, just on the face of it, a good sign for Severance. Still, he couldn't be sure. Women were supposed to be very subtle, and he'd never had much time even to try and analyse the strange creatures. Except Mothereen (he'd named her that because she was Irish), the little old woman who'd given him the only mothering he remembered, Garth had never got very near any woman's mentality. He braced himself, and asked, "How soon can you be ready?"

"In an hour – in less than an hour. As soon as I've told Mums," Marise spoke quickly and thickly, over a beating heart. Each moment excited her more and more. She felt herself the heroine of a thrilling drama – a drama where she had to play the star part without any rehearsals, and without ever having read further than the first scene of the first act. It might be a drama of "stunts," too – as the movie people said: dangerous stunts, where she might have to walk a tightrope with a deep drop underneath. But she wasn't afraid. She would not have thrown over the part now if some other easier one with the same ending had offered. She didn't recognise herself as she was to-day. But she did not care. It was all Tony's fault. Or perhaps a little Mums' fault too.

"And afterwards?" she heard Garth quietly asking.

"Oh!.. Well, the first thing is the fun of surprising everyone. After that – well, I haven't exactly thought yet."

"You had better think," he said. "Much better."

Marise glanced at the back of Zélie's head, then met Miss Marks's eyes in the mirror.

"We'll talk it over presently with Mums. She's so wise– and always knows how to do the right thing." The "correct thing" would have been more apt an expression, but Marise wasn't thinking of the fine shades. She was thinking just then more of Zélie; and the thought of Zélie made her blush, she didn't quite see why!

"Miss Marks," she said, "I may want you by and by to take down several notes for me, letters to some of my most intimate friends, to be sent after – after the wedding. But at this particular instant I fancy there's nothing more for you to do, except – oh yes, do be very nice, and run down to the mail counter, or wherever in the hotel you can buy stamps."

As these instructions were being given, Zélie pencilled with incredible quickness a few words on a scrap of paper. This scrap she tucked up her sleeve, and a second or two later, as Garth opened the door for her to go out, she contrived to slip the paper into the hand on the knob.

"Now I'll call Mums," cried Marise, fearing to risk such a moment alone with this unclassified wild animal, soon to become her dummy husband. "Mums is not pleased, because I said I wanted a few words with you before she came in – though she'd be much crosser if she knew I'd let Miss Marks stay. You'll back me up with her, won't you, that my plan —ours, I mean – is the best?"

"I think," said Garth, "you don't need much backing from me with your mother, though if you do, I'll give it as well as I know how. But wait a second before she comes. I have a superstition. I ask that you won't be married in black."

"Oh! But I chose this dress on purpose!" The words escaped before she'd stopped to think.

Garth didn't flush. He was past that. He needed all his blood at his heart. "I supposed you did," he said. "All the same, don't wear it."

"But it's such a pretty dress – and hat. They're new. I like them – better than anything I've got."

"For this occasion! I understand."

"Are you – being sarcastic?" Marise hesitated.

"No-o. Only sincere. Why did you want to wear black to be married – to me?"

"I – don't know." She stammered a little.

"Well then, if you don't know, change to another colour."

"Oh, I'm quite willing to do that if you make a point of it!"

The man's manner was so different from the other day, that Marise was less sure of his motives in taking her at the price. He spoke shortly and sharply now, like a military martinet, she decided. But he wasn't exactly "common." He wasn't even ordinary.

Her last words were at the door of her own room, and she whisked through, to find her mother. She thought how she should break the news. And she thought, also, what she should wear in place of the black dress. Should she put on grey – or heliotrope – "second mourning"? She would have liked to try this trick upon Garth. But the man was capable of making her take off one thing after the other, on pain of not being married to-day – which meant, not spiting Severance.

Mrs. Sorel was flabbergasted.

She would not have used such a vulgar expression herself; but that is what she was.

She argued, she warned, she scolded, she besought. Severance would be furious. It would be a blow which his love might not survive. Tony had not dreamed of this marriage taking place with such – indecent haste!

"If you say much more it won't take place at all!" shrilled Marise, on the verge of hysterics, which (Mums knew from bitter experience) her twentieth-century child was not at all above having when thwarted, just like an early Edwardian.

While Marise was away, Garth opened the folded scrap of paper that Zélie Marks had slipped into his hand, and read the line she had pencilled.

"For goodness' sake don't be married in those awful best clothes of yours that you wore Sunday. Put on the uniform of the Guards, and look a regular man."

He was in no mood for laughing, yet he grinned. "And look a regular man!" … Girls were queer. As if it would matter to Marise what he wore! But – well, hang it, why shouldn't he make her notice him? She would do that if he turned up in uniform. And wasn't that what he wished to look in her eyes, "A regular man"?

He'd made up his mind to take Zélie's tip, when suddenly he remembered that Marise and he would not be married in church. They'd walk into some parson's parlour, and the knot would be tied there. He couldn't get into his uniform for a home-made affair like that.

Garth had gone no further than this when Marise came back, chaperoned by Mums.

"My mother makes one stipulation," the girl announced. "That the wedding shall be in a church. She's picked up English ideas, and thinks anything else 'hardly respectable.' Though I should have thought for that reason it would be more appropriate! However, I don't care. Do you?"

"Not a da – not a red cent," said Garth.

Two minutes later he had gone to buy a marriage license, engage the services of a clergyman – and a church.

Marise changed her dress. She would not wear white, like a real bride. That would be sacrilege, she said; and compromised by putting on her favourite blue. But it was the oldest dress she owned; and she had intended giving it to Céline.

The girl wished she were pale. But that could be arranged. And she was arranging it with powder when the bell of the telephone rang.

Mums flew to the instrument, tearfully drawing on her gloves.

Garth had called up, to give the name of the church and the hour fixed for the wedding. They must start at once.

CHAPTER XV
THE CHURCH DOOR

Céline was a fervent admirer of Lord Severance. Half Greek, she had heard him called. To her he was wholly Greek: a Greek god. Indeed, he was miles handsomer than "cet Apollon en marbre" adorning a pedestal in the salon, which statue she tried to drape tastefully with climbing flowers each morning. His lordship's nose was much the same as Apollo's; so was his proud air of owning the world and not caring particularly about it: and to Céline's idea he had more to be proud of than a mere god who went naked.

Gods had no pockets, and Lord Severance had many, beautifully flat yet containing banknotes with which he was generous when nobody looked. Since she could not marry him, Céline wanted Mademoiselle to do so, for Mademoiselle was her alter ego. She shared Mademoiselle's glory and her dresses. She wished to be maid to a countess – a chic countess, as the wife of Milord Severance would be. It was desolating that Mademoiselle should throw everything over because of a silly quarrel (it must be a quarrel!) and fling herself away on a gawky giant whose clothes might have been made by a butcher!

Yes, it was easy to see that there had been an upheaval of some sort. Mademoiselle was not the same since Sunday afternoon, when this huge personage had arrived by appointment, and Céline had recalled seeing him on shipboard. To be sure, Milord had come in later, and outstayed the Monsieur. But it was then the quarrel must have occurred, for Mademoiselle had been in a state unequalled even after the most trying dress rehearsals. Oh, it was a mystery – a mystery of the deepest blackness!

Céline moaned aloud, with a bleating noise, and gabbled argot as she tidied the belongings which Mademoiselle had flung everywhere.

"If I should call up Milord, how would that be?" she asked herself, and rushed to the 'phone.

Severance, as it happened, had been on the point of telephoning Mrs. Sorel, not daring to attempt direct communication with Marise. He had bad news and good news to give. The bad was that he must sail for England sooner than expected, in fact, on the following day, or perhaps not get a cabin for weeks.

The good news was that a friend had offered to lend him a wonderful house near Los Angeles for the next few months. He had spoken to a certain Lady Fytche (née Adêla Moyle, of California) about his marriage, and bringing Œnone across for her health. Whereupon Adêla (who was at his hotel, and sailing on his ship) said, "I'd love to lend you Bell Towers. The house is standing empty, and you know it's rather nice."

Severance did know, for Bell Towers was a famous place, illustrated in magazines; and if Adêla Moyle had been prettier, it might have become his own before she fell back – figuratively speaking – upon a baronet.

If Marise would give up the stage (he couldn't bear to leave her behind the footlights in New York, admired, interviewed, gossipped about by Tom, Dick and Harry!), he'd lend Bell Towers to Mrs. Sorel, and the girl could vanish from public view till time for her farcical marriage and his own return. If his uncle could be told by himself and the newspapers that Miss Sorel was engaged to Major Garth, it would be enough to cool the old boy's suspicions.

Then, as Tony's hand was stretched out for the receiver, came a ring at the telephone.

"The dentist!" he thought. For he had had to ask for a second appointment because of that loosened tooth, and was to be called up. It came as a surprise, therefore, to hear Céline's voice.

He could hardly believe the news which the French maid gave him. Marise wouldn't do such a thing! There must be a mistake, he told Céline. Or it was a clumsy joke.

"Milord, c'est la verité," came the answer. "Milord need not take my word. Let him go to the church. Milord may yet be in time. But he must make haste. It is a long way. I heard Madame telephone and talk."

"I will go – I'll do my best," Severance answered, to put the woman off. But – what could he do? What was his "best"?

Céline knew nothing of the secret pact. She judged from what she had overheard, and he could not explain that he didn't see his way to stop the marriage.

The more he thought, the more clear it became that this sudden move by Marise was a caprice to spite him – to "hoist him from his own petard." Severance could almost hear the girl defend herself. "You ought to be pleased that I took you at your word, before you went away. Otherwise I might have changed my mind about the whole thing!"

She was sure to say this, and even if he reached the church in time he wouldn't dare stop the business when it had gone so far. That devil Garth had a beast of a temper; and a fellow can't at the same moment see red, and which side his bread is buttered!

Severance hated Garth venomously since the episode at the Belmore. But the brute was a hero in the States, and would pass in the public eye as a reasonable husband for Marise Sorel.

Nobody who didn't know the ugly truth would say, "How could that beautiful girl throw herself away on that worm?"

Whatever Garth was, he wasn't a worm. Though he had apparently made no bones of accepting a million-dollar bribe, deep within his subconscious self Severance didn't believe that the million was the lure. Garth was in love with the girl, in his loutish way. Perhaps, even, he might hope to win some affection from her in return. Tony felt that he need wish the fool no worse than an attempt to "try it on"!

Force, Severance did not fear. Marise was no flapper. She had her eyes open. She'd know how to handle a man in Garth's position. Besides, Mums would be at her side, a pillar of strength. Tony even felt that in some ways Garth was ideal for the part he had to play. Marise would always contrast him unfavourably with the man she loved. And hating Garth, he – Severance – could enjoy the tortures which the paid dummy was doomed to suffer.

Severance could not keep away from the church. To go was undignified, yet he knew that he would go… Five minutes after his talk with Céline, Tony was in the lift, descending ten storeys of his hotel to the gilding and marble of the ground floor. As in a dream, he ordered a taxi. It came; and – self-conscious, as if he were being married himself – he directed the chauffeur where to drive. Then, still as in a dream, he stared at his reflection in a small mirror, which bobbed as the taxi bounced. It was a consolation to see how handsome and superlatively smart he looked!

He had abandoned his uniform in New York for every-day life; but he was sure that no man in America had clothes to compare in cut with his, which had been built at just the right place in Savile Row. His silk hat was a masterpiece. His tie, his socks, and the orchid in his buttonhole were all of the same shade, and his opal pin repeated the lights and shades of colour.

Well, there was one good thing he could accomplish by turning up at the church. Silently he would show Marise the contrast between a man who was everything he ought to be, and a man who was everything no man should be and live!

The chauffeur slowed at last before a church which looked more English than American, and was perhaps a relic of colonial days. "You can wait," said Severance, getting out. "I may …" But he forgot the rest. In the porch stood two men, who had evidently just arrived and were talking. It was more like a dream than ever to see a familiar uniform which at a glance took Severance home. Both men wore it. The fighting khaki of his own regiment of the Guards!

The shorter of the two tall officers turned and saw him. It was his own Colonel; and the other was Garth. Then a second taxi drove up, containing Marise Sorel and her mother.

Severance would have stepped to the door of their cab, but Garth was before him.

And so it was, with sunshine striking a line of decorations on the V.C.'s breast, that Marise got the contrast between the men. An orchid is beautiful; but the Victoria Cross, even expressed in ribbon, is better.

"Let me introduce my Colonel, Lord Pobblebrook," said Garth. "He has brought his wife, who is American, home to this country; and when we ran across each other this morning he offered to – to see me through here."

"Pobbles" – of whom Marise had heard from Tony – took her hand. "We're proud of Garth in the regiment," he said, and found time to nod to Severance. But he looked puzzled. Why was Severance here? To the best of Pobbles's recollection, Tony had been the ringleader in a set who wanted to snub Garth out of the Brigade. The Colonel's curiosity woke up.

CHAPTER XVI
FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE

For once, Marise was all girl, not actress. She lost her savoir faire at sight of Severance, and could not speak.

She saw him before she saw Garth and "Pobbles," and her eyes took in his perfection of tailorhood. Then Garth came forward, and she was struck with surprise by the uniform of the smartest soldiers in the world.

"What an inspiration!" she thought, never guessing whence that inspiration had come.

Mrs. Sorel, luckily, could always speak, even chatter. She chattered now.

"How nice of you to come, Lord Severance," she chirped, keeping up appearances before Lord Pobblebrook. "And how clever!" she added, camouflaging for "Pobbles's" benefit her surprise that Tony should have learned Marise's secret. How he had done that, she would wring out of someone by and by. But at present duty bade her be pleasant to "Pobbles."

Trying to recall mutual friends (titled) with whose Christian names she could impress the noble soldier, Mums had to keep a watchful eye and ear for her girl and the two young men: but it was not for long. The clergyman was waiting.

"Strange, how many things you can think of at one time – especially the wrong time!" Marise reflected, as she stood before the figure in a surplice.

She had often dreamed of being married, and what kind of a wedding she would have, at St. George's, Hanover Square, or the Guards' Chapel. She had chosen her music, and knew what sort of dress and veil she wanted. Orchids were Tony's flowers. There was a white variety, streaked with silver. Her train should be silver, too. She'd be leaving the stage; and as the Countess of Severance, she could be presented. The silver train would do for Court.

Now, here she was, thousands of miles from Hanover Square and the Guards' Chapel. She had on a street dress. There was no music, unless you could count the far-off strains of a hand-organ playing an old tune, "You made me love you, I didn't want to do it!" The one orchid was in Tony's buttonhole; and he was in a pew looking on while she promised to love, honour and obey another man.

Marise saw the two pictures – the dream and the reality; and the difference made her sick. All the sense of wild adventure was gone. There was no adventure! There was just blank ruin.

What a fool she had been! Was there no way out, even now? Surely there was one. She could still say "No," instead of "Yes," and there'd be an end, where Garth was concerned.

Perhaps on the spur of the moment Marise would have followed her impulse, if – Lord Pobblebrook hadn't been present. Somehow, before him she couldn't make a scene!

The girl felt as if two unseen influences had her by the arm, one on the right, one on the left, like the white and black angels of the Mohammedan. They pulled both ways at once, and trembling as she never had trembled on a first night at the theatre, she looked up at Garth.

There was an odd expression in his yellow-grey eyes, which she had likened to the eyes of a lion in a Zoo who sees nothing save his far-off desert. This lion was not now thinking of the desert. He was thinking of her. But how? As a piece of meat which he would soon be free to devour? Or – as a new keeper who, though young and a woman, would have to be reckoned with?

As this question flashed through her mind, Marise remembered that she knew nothing of Garth's past, nor of his character, except that he had fought and won the V.C., therefore he must be brave. But why worry, since in a few months they'd part, and she would forget him, as she'd forgotten several leading men who played "opposite" her when she first went on the stage?

But that look in the yellow-grey eyes; what was its language? What was in the soul or brain behind the eyes? Was Garth deciding how to treat her during the short time that would be his?

Marise recalled the sound of his voice when he had asked her what would come after the marriage. She'd answered that she "hadn't thought yet." And he had said, "You had better think. Think now."

"Well, I'm not alone in the world, and I'm not afraid of him," she encouraged herself. "Cave Man business is old stuff. And anyhow – what price a Cave Girl?"

The vision of a Cave Girl downing a surprised Cave Man almost made Marise laugh; and then it was time for the ring. Good gracious, the ring! Of course, no one had thought of it!

There was an instant's stage-wait. Marise's eyes turned to her mother and saw Mums tearing off a glove to supply the necessary object. Far more dramatic, Severance had jumped up and was pulling from the least finger of his left hand a gold snake-ring which had been made for his mother in Athens. Yes, he would love to have Marise married to Garth with that! But, after all, the bridegroom had brought the ring. It was only that for a few seconds he had forgotten. Perhaps the look he had exchanged with his bride had made him forget!

He remembered, however, before Mums or Severance could step into the breach. In fact, he gave them no breach to step into.

"With this ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow," Marise heard him repeat, as he slipped over the third finger of her left hand the circlet retrieved in haste from his khaki tunic. She glanced at the ring as it slid loosely on, and was amazed to see what such an outsider had chosen.

The "smart thing" in London and New York was, not to have the "stodgy old curtain-ring" which had been woman's badge of subjection for centuries. Instead, the idea was a band of platinum set round with diamonds; and this was what Garth had hit upon!

While Marise was on her knees – shamefaced because there was nothing she dared pray about – she thought of the ring, and wondered who on earth had put Garth up to getting it?

When all was over, and the words which should be momentous were spoken, "I pronounce you man and wife," the girl lifted her face with the hardest expression it had ever worn. Eyes and lips said, "This is where the bridegroom kisses the bride. But that's not in our programme. Don't dare to take advantage of your Colonel being here."

Whether Garth read the signal, or whether he'd no intention of keeping the time-honoured custom, he refrained. Instead of a kiss, he gave the bride a slight smile, gone so quickly she wondered if she'd imagined it.

In another moment, after she'd been pressed in her mother's arms, Lord Pobblebrook was shaking hands; and then came Severance.

It was a good minute for him, because Garth was kept busy by a kind Colonel and a not very kind mother-in-law.

"Let no man put them asunder!" the Reverend David Jones had just said, but there already was the man who intended, in the devil's good time, to disobey that command.

"This has been the worst half-hour of my life," Tony groaned. "My God, how I've suffered! I all but sprang up and yelled 'Stop!' when the fool looked round for someone to say why the marriage shouldn't take place – "

"'Or else for ever after hold his peace,'" quoted Marise.

"Dash it all, don't rub things in," Severance begged. "I didn't know how bad it would be – "

"I half thought you might spring up!" the girl confessed.

"If I had, what would you have done?"

"I – don't know."

"It would have made matters worse for the future – more difficult all round," Tony said. "That thought held me back. But, Marise, it was cruel to spring this surprise on me."

"It doesn't seem to have been a surprise," she reminded him. "How did you know about it – the church, and everything?"

"A little bird told me. Why did you want to hurt me so?"

Marise shrugged her shoulders. "You had hurt me – almost to death. I had to strike back! But let's not talk of it any more. The thing's done – and can't be undone."

"It can, and will be, before long, please Heaven!"

The girl laughed. "Please Heaven?" And she was glad when Pobbles broke in, Mums at his side.

"My dear young lady, Garth confided in me (am I not his Colonel, which is much the same as a father confessor?) that this – er – this little show had been got up in a hurry for one reason or other. I'm pleased and honoured to be in at the dea – I mean the birth – er – you know what I mean! And I'd be still more pleased if – er – couldn't we – I – invite you all to some sort of blow-out? My wife – "

"Sweet of you, Lord Pobblebrook!" cut in Mrs. Sorel. "But if there'd been time for any sort of rejoicing, any little feast, I should be giving it and asking Lady Pobblebrook and yourself to join us. But I suppose Major Garth can't quite have made it clear to you that he is called away suddenly – on a sort of mission. That's why the marriage was so rushed. He has to go at once, so he wanted to be married first, and – "

"Take my wife with me," explained Garth.

His mother-in-law of ten minutes stared at him with the eyes of a cold, boiled fish.

"Of course – yes – that's what he wanted," she smiled to Pobbles. "What a pity it can't be! My daughter, Lord Pobblebrook, is a servant of the public, you know. She has to obey them, marriage or no marriage. And they want her in New York."

"Not as much as I want her out West," said Garth. He smiled again – that same queer smile with the same unreadable look in his eyes, though this time both were for Mums.

The indignant lady turned to Marise, in case there were some plot against her; but the girl gave a very slight shake of her head. Light came back to Mrs. Sorel's eyes. She ought to be able to trust her own daughter!

"I took the liberty of ordering lunch for four at the Ritz after I met my Colonel in the hall of the Belmore," said Garth. "I stopped on the way there, to buy the ring. But" – and he eyed Severance coolly – "there will be room to have a fifth plate laid, if – er – "

"Oh!" thought Marise. "Not so much Cave Man, after all, as the Strong, Silent Man! All right! I know that kind from A to Z. And I dare say it's just as easy to be a Strong, Silent Girl as to be a Cave Girl, if once you begin properly."

Her sense of adventure woke again as she waited to hear Tony's answer.